


Eine traute Zweisamkeit

by shessocold



Series: Summer of '99 [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 1890s, Best Friends, Canon Compliant, Canon Gay Character, Deutsch | German, For fuck's sake stop pining after magical Hitler, Friendship, Intense, Languages and Linguistics, Light Angst, M/M, Pining, Pretentious, Secret Crush, Teen Angst, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-03-03 15:53:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13344501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shessocold/pseuds/shessocold
Summary: Albus regrets his lack of familiarity with the German language.





	Eine traute Zweisamkeit

Gellert, who has mastered the English language with the same frantic ease with which he masters every other subject that happens to hold his interest, nonetheless often finds himself frustrated with what he describes to Albus as its paucity of shades of meaning.

Albus, alone in his bed in the quiet hours of the night and unable to sleep for the incessant perambulation of his mind over the day's conversations, slowly but inexorably arrives at the conclusion that Gellert's remark carries an additional – and almost too painful for him to entertain – implication: a person's mind can only reach as far as the language within whose confines it operates will allow. How can he, Albus, really follow Gellert's graceful leaps of thought when the dull simplicity of the English tongue keeps him tethered to what he now understand to be the most pedestrian of planes? 

Compounding Albus' anguish is the very nature of the latest word Gellert found no exact English equivalent for: _Zweisamkeit_ , a shared aloneness – a feeling of togetherness so complete that two become one in contrast with the rest of the universe. The joy (unbounded! exquisite!) he felt as he heard Gellert explain such a concept – the afternoon sushine dancing merrily on his golden hair through the leaves of the beech tree under wich they sat – is now marred by the memory of the flashes of impatience Albus thinks he saw shining through Gellert's clear blue eyes: impatience at himself for not being able to come up with a more immediate translation, impatience at the lack of precision and conciseness of their shared language, impatience at Albus for his failure to inhabit the proffered word in its unadultered form. 

Albus closes his eyes and allows himself to dream of a world where he can speak German and Hungarian to Gellert, the words flowing effortlessy from his mouth to Gellert's ear, his speech nimble like a dance, beautifully juxtaposed phrases perfectly conveying the full and exact scope of his ideas – his feelings – in the form that is most familiar to Gellert, the most true, the most significant. His heart trembles at the thought of what developments such a newfound ability could bring about – he wants to think of a more perfect intellectual communion, but his mind steers him down a familiar – yet treacherous – path, one that in the last few days has invariably led to glorious images of Gellert bathing in the village stream, his nudity dazzling, heroic. 

Albus desires Gellert. He sees no point in denying this rather indisputable fact, at least not to himself, nor does he have any moral qualms about the nature of his attractions – at the same time, he is not proud of what he sees as a completely unnecessary ripple in the otherwise perfectly serene pool of his and Gellert's communion of minds. 

_Unless..._

But Albus doesn't wish to allow himself to even merely entertain the possibility – to let his mind run with the idea (forbidden in its unlikelihood, and all the more seductive for it) that the symmetry of their friendship might not yet be irremediably compromised, that Gellert's heart might harbour enough of a reciprocal longing to put them once more on an even footing. _Zweisamkeit_ , he thinks, once again. Does the concept hold romantic connotations? Albus tries to void his mind of all prejudices, of all hopes. He examines the word over and over, as dispassionately as he can. 

It's no use. 

The dawn finds him sleepless, undone. A bird sings outside his window, his song eerily beautiful. The first owl from Gellert – further considerations of the inevitability on Muggle subjugation, the logical reasoning behind them so cristalline in its elegance that it is almost enough to bring a tear to Albus' tired eye – arrives not much later. He immediately sets about drafting a reply, and so begins another day.

**Author's Note:**

> As I said in the tags: for fuck's sake stop pining after magical Hitler, you idiot.
> 
> (With my apologies to the English language, which is actually a) the opposite of dull b) a beautiful, powerful, flexible tool that I cherish deeply) (e con un pensiero anche alla lingua italiana, che non vorrei si sentisse trascurata) (@YouBlitheringIdiot, che poverina riceverai una notifica per questa cosa terribile: al prossimo giro scrivo il matrimonio di Harry, promesso).


End file.
